Meaningless Food Labels We Tend to Believe

All
3 are essential components of a comprehensive health strategy to help consumers
improve their diets and reduce diseases when shopping at their local grocery
store.[*]

With the natural/organic food category growing over 400% in the
last 20 years,it really shouldn’t be
too much of a surprise that companies are cashing in by resorting to exaggerated, misleading or flat out false claims to
gain a dollar in this growing market.[*][*][*][*]

In fact, companies spend billions in shady advertising to get you
to purchase their product. Millions of which are spent in finding just the
right words and written language to give them an advantage over the other guy
(via test marketing, segmentation, positioning, branding, targeting, consumer
research).[*]

Here is a list of the most common examples of false claims and other labeling shenanigans by the US food
industry.

Natural

Also
commonly labeled All Natural, 100% Natural, Naturally Raised

Obviously,
products claiming to be natural (particularly those aimed at parents) have a
competitive edge in the marketplace…it shouldn’t surprise us to see this label
on literally EVERYTHING nowadays.[*]

As
you may know, the Natural label is an extremelygeneral claim that often causes a
consumer to imply a product or
packaging is made from or is innate to our environment.[*]

Some
consumers may even interpret claims such as “All Natural” or “100% Natural” as
indicating a more nutritious or wholesome food product than it really is.[*]

In
actuality, the FDA and the USDA regulate the term “natural” differently. So
let’s clarify.[*]

FDA: Easy
enough, the agency has never issued
formal rules to clarify what the term ‘Natural’ represents. This is
because, according to the FDA : “From a food science perspective, it is
difficult to define a food product that is 'natural' because the food has
probably been processed and is no longer the product of the earth”.[*][*]

In
essence, all products labeled Natural that are not meat or poultry – have no merit at all.

…and
that’s it for the FDA’s definition of the term.

USDA: Unlike the
FDA, the USDA has formal policy (since 1982) on the term Natural. This policy declares all fresh meat and poultry (note, NOT
eggs or dairy) carrying the “natural” claim must not contain any artificial flavoring, color ingredients, chemical
preservatives, or artificial or synthetic ingredients, and the meat is
“minimally processed” defined by USDA as a process that does not fundamentally
alter the raw product.[*][*]

It
may be worth noting that the USDA permits products to be labeled “100% Natural”
or “All Natural” even if they contain added chicken broth, beef broth and/or
saline water which can raise the sodium content of the product to unnatural levels.[*]

Although
some producers may use the term “natural” on meat to claim that animals were
not exposed to any antibiotics or hormones, this implication falls outside the scope of the USDA definition.[*]

Antibiotic
use and/or hormone claims are not approved/regulated by the Natural label under the USDA.[*]

Also
worth noting, the natural label does not include any standards regarding farm
practice (ex. humane treatment/animal rights).[*]

Regarding
annual verification on Natural claims, the USDA has defined the use of the term
and can hold manufacturers accountable to the proper use of the claim but does NOT currently have a verification
system in place to verify products after the initial approval prior to
marketing. [*][*]

It
may be worth noting that GMO
ingredients are commonly used in food, beverages and/or feed used in
beef/poultry/pig production that is then later labeled Natural.

In
fact, a Hartman Group poll in 2010 illustrated that over 60 percent of
consumers mistakenly believe that the
"natural" label implies or suggests the absence of genetically
engineered (GMO) ingredients.[*]

Of
course, some may propose that GMO ingredients are not different then the
naturally occurring thing (be it animal or plant). But consider, you are
genetically manipulating a plant or animal that becomes an organism that has
never existed prior in nature…seems pretty UNnatural
to me…

In
2010, the FDA purported that the consumer can read the label for themselves and
determine if the item is natural – unfortunately, GMO ingredients are not
required to be labeled (which may make it a tad difficult for consumers to read
it).[*][*]

Bottom line – Natural
only has real value when referring to meat and poultry when products are
initially approved for marketing by the USDA (after initial approval, there is
no verification system in place to validate/re-confirm claims).

Organic

You may be asking yourself why is the USDA Organic food label on
this list….true, the Organic label comes with MUCH more merit then the
‘Natural’ label, I give you that…

However, the USDA Organic label is quickly losing the integrity it once possessed…for several reasons.

You may not realize, but to a very large extent, large NON-organic corporations have now come
to dominate the organic food market and hold several seats on the National
Organic Standards Board (NOSB).

Fun note about the NOSB, this board is in charge of making
recommendations regarding which
substances are allowed and which are prohibited in organic food. The NOSB
serves as an advisory board to USDA.[*]

It may not be too surprising, as large corporate memberships on
the board increase, so has the number of nonorganic materials approved for
organic foods. This list is called the National
List. In 2002, 77 ingredients (such as baking soda) constructed the
National List… today, more than 250
nonorganic substances are listed. [*]

I highly recommend you check out the
National List for yourself…a very interesting read.

You might note carrageenan, a seaweed-derived thickener, is on the
List. This might be interesting since it has a somewhat controversial
background. Yet, the National Organic Standards Board voted 10 to 5 to keep
carrageenan on the growing list of nonorganic ingredients that can be used in
organic labeled foods.[*]

Ammonium
Nonanoate, an herbicide, was voted to be added to the list in DEC 2011.
Those who voted on the Board for the addition were General Mills, Campbell’s
Soup, Organic Valley, Whole Foods Market and Earthbound Farms. Luckily, the
vote did not win the two-thirds majority that it needed – if it did, it would
have been the first time a herbicide
was placed on the list.[*]

There is also the issue of repeat
failures of inspection and regulation of those using the Organic label.

In March 2010, an audit by the USDA Office found inspection agencies were failing to
ensure that organic operations were producing organic products under a
uniform regulatory requirement. Those involved in the USDA audit recognized
that it really doesn’t take much to be certified organic.[*]

1 A conflict of interest is created when certifying agency is paid
directly by the farmers requesting the Organic label.

2 The accreditation of the certifying agencies is seldom
re-evaluated.

3 Organic farmers are unwilling to maintain the paperwork to
provide transparency of their operations.

4 The certifying agencies are inconsistent with the frequency of
inspections, inspection standards and the punishment of violations.

5 The National Organic Program does not maintain a systematic
program for catching fraudulent operations with very few agencies testing for
pesticides.

Now, I hope you are starting to get the gist of why the integrity
of the organic label is slowly becoming less than the original standards it
once stood for.

Bottom
line –
The Organic label could be considered to be a victim of its own success. As the
demand increases for organic foods, so does the interest from large
corporations that will be able to influence the regulation and laws the label
is composed of. If you can’t grow your own or buy from local farmers, then the
best we got is the Organic label…just be aware that it ain’t what it used to
be.

Given that, eggs may be labeled as containing omega-3 if chickens
are fed flax seed, but they should NOT
be considered to have a heart health benefit because of their cholesterol and
saturated fat content.[*]

Also, some products will add flax powder in their food simple to
attach the omega-3 label on their product.[*]

Bottom
line - If you want to increase you intake of Omega 3 fatty acids,
stick to wild caught cold water fatty fish and seaweed.

Pasture-raised

Due to the number of variables involved in pasture-raised
agricultural systems, the USDA has not developed a federal definition for
pasture-raised products.[*]

Bottom
line - In the US, this label is meaningless.

No Added Hormones

Also seen as ‘Raised without Hormones”, No Hormones Administered,

Federal regulations have never
permitted hormones or steroids in poultry or pork. So, the problem with
this label is that by using the term 'no added hormones' it suggests that any
other products that do not use this term are adding hormones - this is not the
case.[*][*]

However, the USDA does
allow the use of a number of hormones on beef. Beef and that is labeled as
“no hormones administered” is considered to be free from any added hormones
over the lifetime of the animal and therefore does imply that the manufacturer
has gone beyond USDA regulations for conventional meat production. [*]

Yet, it is important to note that the use of the term “hormone free” is considered “unapprovable” by USDA on any
meat products.[*]

Bottom
line - In the US, the merit of this label is trivial because it only
applies to beef and in that case is considered ‘unapprovable’ .

Humanely Raised

Multiple labeling programs make claims that animals were treated
humanely during the production cycle, but the verification of these claims
varies widely. This label is not
regulated under a single USDA definition.[*]

The label Certified Humane®
is completely different then the generic, all-encompassing Humanely Raised
label.

The Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) 28-member Scientific Committee
has reviewed all of the current research which resulted in standards for the
Certified Humane® label. This certification conducts annual inspections by independent
non-profit companies and required producers to meet all animal care
standards in order to achieve certification (maybe the Organic label can take
note on this one).[*]

It’s interesting to note that HFAC's Certified Humane® "Free
Range" not only has a space requirement but also a prerequisite that hens
must be outdoors for at least 6 hours per day (weather permitting).[*]

Bottom
line – If you’re worried about animal rights, this label does nothing
to make you sleep better at night. If you are interested in where to buy products
that have the actual Certified Humane® label check this
link out to search in your area.

Free Range

Also labeled Free Roaming

The USDA has defined "free range" or "free
roaming" for poultry products
only (this does NOT include
eggs or beef).[*]

The USDA's (and industry standard) definition for "Free
Range" is that birds must have "outdoor access" for 5 minutes.
In some cases, this can mean access only through a "pop hole," with
no full-body access to the outdoors and no minimum space requirement.[*][*]

These regulations do not specify the quality of outdoor access (ex. small patch of dirt or gravel) of
the outside range. [*][*]

One thought to add to the ‘free range’ term is beak trimming which
still normally occurs even though battery cages have been phased out. Beak
trimming is most common in egg-laying strains of chickens. In some countries
such as the United States, turkeys are routinely beak trimmed as well. (Beak
trimming has been banned in Switzerland since 1992). The practice of beak
trimming most often occurs at 1-day of age at the same time as the chick is
being sexed and vaccinated.[*]

Bottom
line – Remember, the label Free Range used on beef and eggs is unregulated and there is no standard
definition of this term. In fact, the use of this label regarding poultry
is a flat-out joke when you read what the term actually defines. Although you may find eggs or chicken meat claiming to be free range,
I wouldn’t assume the bird was out pecking around in the sun outside old Farmer
Brown’s barn. [*]

Raised without Antibiotics

The USDA has banned the use
of the "antibiotic free" label on meat and poultry.

Use of the term "antibiotic free" is considered "unapprovable" by USDA on any
meat products. Yet the USDA still allows producers to label meat and
poultry products with the claims "no antibiotics administered" or
"raised without antibiotics."[*]

Virtually all intensively farmed animals receive low levels of
antibiotics in their feed or water throughout their lives to get them to market
weight. When animals are confined indoors by the thousands, antibiotics are used
to suppress disease. Often times, animals are taken off the drugs before
slaughter – as is often required by law
for animals destined for human consumption.[*]

There is no organization that verifies this claim other than the
company manufacturing or marketing the product. [*][*]

In 2008, Tyson Foods settled a class action consumer lawsuit for
its false "Raised Without Antibiotics" claim. The company withdrew
its modified label and agreed to $5 million in compensation (which isn’t much
considering annual revenues of nearly $27 billion). [*]

Bottom
line – This label is unapprovable and unregulated…which makes it
pretty much worthless.

No Additives

I see this label a lot in combination with other labels.

Unfortunately, there is no official definition for the term ‘No
Additives’ and it is not verified when used.[*]

Bottom
line – worthless.

Made
With

This
label may claim that a food is “made with” whole grains, fruits, vegetables….it
may even emphasize the presence of healthful ingredients through the use of
pictures or banners.

True,
the FDA requires companies to comply with specific regulations for claims about
nutrients (such as fats, cholesterol, sodium, fiber)…however, the law does not
cover claims about pictures of ingredients which may not even included in the product
(such as whole wheat, fruits or veggies).[*]

For example: Tropical fruit flavored Gerber
Graduates Fruit Juice Treats show pictures of fresh oranges and pineapple. But
the main ingredients are corn syrup, sugar and white grape juice concentrate.

Bottom line – Read the ingredient list. If
the ingredient even made it on list, look to see if it’s one of the first 3
ingredients in the product.

Good Source Of

This label ensures that the product contains between 10-19% of your daily requirement for a particular nutrient.[*]

Where this term can become quite misleading is in terms of fiber. This
is because many products add “isolated” fiber.On top of that, there is very
little evidence that “isolated” fiber provides any of the disease-protective
benefits that the real soluble and insoluble fibers do.[*][*][*]

If you see the words “inulin,” “polydextrose,” and “maltodextrin”
listed in the ingredients, you are eating “isolated” fiber.[*]

Bottom
line – Looking for a good source of anything: stay with whole foods.

Lightly-sweetened

Also
seen as Low Sugar

The
FDA has regulations concerning the use of “sugar free” and “no added sugars”
but nothing governing the claims “low
sugar” or “lightly sweetened”.[*]